1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to medical appliances and in particular to an appliance for use in a medical procedure for closing or "plugging" a hole in a patient's nasal septum.
2. Prior Art
The invention is a medical appliance for insertion into, so as to close off, a hole or aperture as has formed in a medical patient's nasal septum as a result of a secondary infection resulting from an infectious disease like tuberculosis; from a nasal trauma; chronic nose picking; as a result of septal surgery, or the like. Such a hole can be a round hole, but is rarely a perfect circle. Where earlier devices, such as a plug developed by H. John Jacob, U. S. Pat. No. 4,031,569, have recognized a need for a septal plug, such medical appliance has not effectively taken into account septum holes that are other than circular. In practice, therefore, such earlier plug has been used successfully for circular or nearly circular holes, such plug cylindrical member has tended to turn or move in an irregular septal hole, eroding and thus enlarging that hole, or has often been displaced to one end of the hole or the other, as in the case of a elliptical hole in the nasal septum. Accordingly, such member displacement has often opened the hole to air flow, and movement of the member across the hole has often caused hole erosion, bleeding, breathing problems and infection requiring additional medical attention.
The invention is in a utilization of a center post that is irregular in shape, preferably elliptical rather than cylindrical and axially maintains flexible disks across its ends. The irregular center post is to seat in a septum hole with its longest cross sectional axis, or major axis, fitted into a longest segment of that septum hole, and with the post minor axis fitting in the minor or shortest hole axis. So arranged, the center post cross section major and minor axis fit closely to the septum hole edge discouraging plug rotation and movement as has been common with the septum plug of the '569patent.
Additional to the '569 patent, a number of other medical appliances have been developed for closure of holes and wounds. None of such devices, however, involves a center post, or the like, that has an irregular cross section, preferably an ellipse. Examples of such earlier devices are shown in U. S. Pat. Nos. 4,836,204; 5,108,420; 5,192,301; 5,258,000; 5,334,217; 5,366,478; 5,501,700; 5,634,936 and 5,690,674, with the above cited '569 being the closest art to the invention.